Month: February 2020

The Orange men’s basketball team defeated Chapel Hill on Monday night. Joey McMullin and Jason Franklin led the Panthers to its ninth win of the season. Orange also completed a season sweep of the Tigers. Enjoy highlights of the game from Thompsonteamfilms.com.

Cory Lea built a reputation by turning around football programs in Vance and Durham Counties.

Now, he’ll try to do it in Hillsborough.

Lea was formally named the new head coach of the Cedar Ridge Red Wolves on Thursday afternoon in a tweet from Athletic Director Andy Simmons. He was formally approved by the Orange County School Board, as first reported by Hillsboroughsports.com, on Monday night.

Lea replaces Torrian Hinton, who served as interim coach last season. Antonio King resigned as Cedar Ridge’s head coach after the first practice of summer training camp last July to become the running backs coach at North Carolina Central, his alma mater.

In 2019, Hinton coached Cedar Ridge to a 1-10 season in its first varsity campaign after the school didn’t field a team the year before. King coached a junior varsity squad in 2018 and continued spring workouts last May to help secure enough players to have a varsity team again.

Cedar Ridge’s victory over Chapel Hill on October 11 was its first varsity win on the gridiron in 465 days.

Lea departs Riverside after three seasons. He led the Pirates to a share of the 2018 Triangle 6 Championship, when they finished 4-1 and tied Jordan atop the league. It was only the second conference championship in school history and its first since 2002, when they won the PAC-6 Conference under former coach Linny Wrenn.

In 2006, Riverside reached the 4-AA State Championship game under Tommy Blalock. In the subsequent eleven years, the Pirates only had one winning season (in 2013).

Lea arrived from Northern Vance in 2017 and briefly took the Pirates to the top of Durham football. The Pirates defeated Hillside, Jordan, and Northern Durham during Lea’s stint.

After going 4-7 in 2017, they had consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 2001-02. Last fall, Riverside defeated crosstown rival Northern Durham for the first time since 2013 and only the second time in the 2010s.

When Lea took over at Northern Vance in 2015, the Vikings had gone a combined 9-57 from 2009-14. In Lea’s first year, they went 5-6, ending the year with a 26-17 upset win at Cedar Ridge. It was Northern Vance’s winningest season in seven years.

In 2016, Lea led the Vikings to another 5-6 campaign. They likely would have made the state playoffs, but were ineligible after three players were ejected from an August game against Warren County for fighting.

Lea was the next-to-last coach in Northern Vance history. Antwain Cook replaced Lea and Northern Vance consolidated with neighboring Southern Vance to form Vance County High in 2018.

Since the Red Wolves went 12-3 in 2010 and reached 2-AA Eastern Regional Championship game, they’ve had six head coaches in eight years (seven if you count Melvin Griffin, who served as interim coach for about three weeks after Scott Loosemore resigned in August 2018).

Last season was actually the second time in recent years that an assistant had to fill in as interim head coach for an entire season because of an August emergency. In 2015, former Cummings head coach Steve Johnson was hired as head coach, but suffered a thoracic aortic aneurysm just before practice was supposed to start. Loosemore served as interim coach in 2015, then became permanent coach the following year.

Lea also served as Riverside’s offensive coordinator in 2014. He previously was an assistant at Granville Central. His first job as a head coach was at Bartlett Yancey in 2011, where he remained for three seasons.

Cedar Ridge will open 2020 at Carrboro on August 21.

Jason Franklin scored 21 points in Orange’s 75-70 victory over Chapel Hill on Monday night. It was the ninth time this year that Franklin scored 15 points or more in a game. He hit all three of his 3-point attempts. Franklin’s season-high of 26 points came against Cedar Ridge on January 31. A junior who is in his third year at the varsity level, Franklin will join Orange in its regular season finale on Friday night against Northern Durham at Poe Gymtorium. Orange will start play in the Big 8 Conference Tournament on Monday against an opponent to be determined. Franklin had his career-high of 36 points last year against Southern Durham.

When Landon Dalehite, Nathan Sorrells, D.J. Norman, Sincere Hanner, Crawford Farmer and Hayden Kirk started playing together as sixth graders at Gravelly Hill Middle School boys basketball team in 2018, they aimed to eventually do something that no other Grizzlies team had done before.

Win the Orange Person Athletic Conference Championship.

It wasn’t just something that no boys basketball team had ever done at Gravelly. With several different sports had won Northern Division championships, no team in any sport at Gravelly had captured an OPAC Championship since 2010.

Together, the boys basketball team won two Northern Division titles at the junior varsity level. This season, they were finally together on the varsity, but their season started with a loss to Culbreth on December 3.

From that point forward, Coach Eric Jeffries created a team motto.

Be homeless and be like homeless people.

“In other words, play like its our last game,” Jeffries said. “Play like we gotta eat that night. If we don’t eat that night, we might freeze. I was trying to get these guys to understand that when you get an opportunity, take advantage of it because they might not be a tomorrow.”

Gravelly didn’t lose again in 2019-2020, winning 12 in a row.

The Grizzlies won the first OPAC boys basketball championship in school history on Tuesday night when they defeated Phillips 45-37 at Grizzlies Gymnasium in Efland. While the eighth graders were the emotional leaders in Gravelly’s suffocating full-court press, it was seventh grader Kai Wade who stole the show.

Wade scored 13 points in a span of ten minutes bridging the second and third quarters to shake the Grizzlies out of an early offensive funk. Wade finished with 20 points to lead all scorers. Dalehite had nine.

Part of the sluggish start from both teams was because of a 75-minute delay when none of the referees showed up at the scheduled game time of 5:15. Gravelly Athletic Director David Hall had to scramble at the 11th hour and 59th minute to talk an official from Roxboro and another from Chapel Hill to work the game on the fly.

Phillips, whose only losses this season came against Gravelly, were led by Janiyus Sharpe with 17 points. Travion Cobb added 14. Trailing 17-12 at the half, Sharpe personally erased the deficit with five unanswered points within 47 seconds of the second half.

Minutes later, Sharpe picked up his fourth foul dueling Dalehite for a loose ball, and the Falcons offense couldn’t get out of second gear without him.

Gravelly built a 12-point lead early in the fourth quarter behind field goals by Kirk and Sorrells. When Dalehite hit Kirk with a no-look pass for a lay-in with 2:49 remaining, the celebration started in the bleachers for many Efland and Cedar Grove residents who had looked afar in recent years at high school state championships teams from Hillsborough and Mebane, but didn’t have a champion to call its own.

Until now.

Before the trophies were handed out and Jeffries cut down the net to hang around Hall’s neck, the eighth graders gathered at the midcourt logo for their last moment together on this floor. When they started playing organized basketball together three years ago, an OPAC Championship at Gravelly Hill was a distant goal.

Now, it was reality and they would savor it.

“Those eighth graders have done something that have never been done here before,” said Jeffries.

GRAVELLY HILL 45, PHILLIPS 37

GRAVELLY HILL: Kai Wade 20, Nathan Sorrells 5, Landon Dalehite 9, Crawford Farmer 3, Hayden Kirk 8.

PHILLIPS: Janiyus Sharpe 17, Travion Cobb 14, Sebastian Borsuk 4, Gavin Southwell 2.

If Derryl Britt was exhausted while coaching Orange on Monday night, he didn’t show it.

He had every reason to be. By the time Orange’s game against Chapel Hill tipped off in Hillsborough, it had been well over 36 hours since he last slept. Ordinarily, he would have hit the sack around midnight on Sunday, but there was a more pressing matter.

His daughter Nakia went into labor pains.

“Daddy, I don’t know if we’re going to make it through the night,” Nakia said to her dad.

With her contractions growing more intense by the minute, Derryl rushed her daughter to Duke Regional Hospital.

“Her water hadn’t broken,” Britt said. “I stayed in the room until she started pushing. That’s when it was time for me to make my exit.”

By the next morning, Britt became a grandfather.

Braylen Naseim Britt was born at 6:41 Monday morning. He was named after former Michigan Wolverines wide receiver Braylon Edwards, though his first name isn’t spelled exactly the same way.

Britt had just enough time to get home around lunch before preparing for that night’s game against Chapel Hill, which is where a great day got better.

Joey McMullin, in his penultimate game in Hillsborough, scored 24 points as Orange defeated Chapel Hill 75-70. The Panthers (9-13, 3-9 in the Big 8 Conference) completed a season sweep of the Tigers and beat them for the third straight time.

Junior Jason Franklin added 21 as the Panthers climbed out of last place in the Big 8 Conference.

Chapel Hill (9-13, 4-8) tied the game late after a 3-pointer from Seth Morton. Orange came back when Jerec Thompson scored on a stickback shot off a missed jumper. McMullin knocked down key free throws down the stretch after the Panthers didn’t allow another field goal in the final five Tiger possessions.

As usual, Orange’s confidence grew early as they sank 3-pointers. McMullin went 4-from-10 from behind the arc. Franklin was 3-for-3, while Jerec Thompson knocked down a pair of treys.

Orange also finished 16-of-17 from the foul line to sew up only its second win since Christmas.

“Tonight, we executed as a team,” Britt said. “We executed the game plan. We stayed together as a unit. Nobody outside of the game plan. And I loved it. I love it when we play that way. We looked like a unit.”

McMullin and Tucker Miller, the only two seniors on Orange’s team, finished the game on the floor as the Panthers ran out the clock. At midseason, it appears a return to the state playoffs would be a certainty for both of them. Orange was 7-1 going and ranked #11 in 3A basketball by MaxPreps going into the South Granville Holiday Tournament. They were fresh off a 50-point win over East Chapel Hill in its Big 8 opener.

After senior Machai Holt was dismissed from the team on January 3, the Panthers lost eight of its next nine and sunk to the bottom of the league.

On Wednesday night, McMullin and Miller will play their final game in Hillsborough against Southern Durham, led by their former coach Greg Motley.

“It’s going to be tough for me and my boy Tucker,” McMullin said. “We’ve know Motley since we were in elementary School. He coached us. It’s going to be tough for me. It’s going to be tough.”

After he cleaned up the gym on Monday night, a bleary-eyed Britt rushed back to Durham Regional. He not only was a winning coach as he journeyed back up I-85.

He was now a grandfather.

The Orange Panthers completed a season sweep of the Chapel Hill Tigers on Monday night. Orange won 75-70 behind 24 points from senior Joey McMullin, who knocked down some pressure free throws down the stretch. The Panthers shot 16-of-17 from the foul line for its ninth win of the season. McMullin has spent four seasons on Orange’s varsity team, where he was a member of the 2017 Big 8 regular season championship team. That squad reached the state quarterfinals after playoff wins over Triton, Southern Guilford and Gray’s Creek. He was also on the floor when the Panthers defeated Southern Durham after a Connor Crabtree running one-handed with three seconds remaining. On Wednesday night, McMullin will play his final game at Orange High when the Panthers host Southern Durham. Orange will start play in the Big 8 Conference Tournament next week.

Last year, Kady Watkins made history. This year, she wanted something more.

In 2019, Watkins became the first woman from Hillsborough to compete for a high school wrestling state championship in the 1st annual North Carolina High School Athletic Association Women’s Wrestling Invitational in Winston-Salem. Competing at 126 pounds, Watkins lost her first round match, but rebounded to pin Haley Shipes of West Mecklenburg in the consolation round. Sarah McLaurin of the N.C. School of Science and Math eliminated Watkins in the next round via a 9-2 decision.

On Saturday in the 2nd annual women’s invitational in Concord, Watkins wanted to place in the 120 pound championships–if not win it.

 “She is an absolutely wonderful kid, she is not only a role model for the other girls on the team but the guys as well,” said Cedar Ridge wrestling coach Scott Metcalf of Watkins, who frequently leads the team in stretching exercises to conclude daily workouts. “She has the respect of her teammates, she works hard, has a great attitude and most importantly is extremely coachable, which not all kids our nowadays.”

In the end, Watkins fell short of her goal, but she did make some history along the way.

She became the first female wrestler from Hillsborough to reach the semifinals of a state championship when she defeated Swansboro’s Madeline Coplen via a 9-6 decision in the quarterfinals.

On top of that, Watkins lost to the eventual state champion. Abby Phillips of South Caldwell defeated Watkins by technical fall. Phillips, who ended the year 25-16, pinned Makalya Wright in 2:29 to win the championship.

“She was really hoping to place this year. But I know she’ll use it as motivation for next year,” said Metcalf. ” Sometimes matchups play a role in some of these tournaments on whether a wrestler will place or not. I think that may have been the case here. She has been an absolute joy to coach and I was really heartbroken today when she came up a little short because she deserved it.”

Watkins, a junior, finished 10-19 this year. She still has her senior season to meet her goals. But if the middle school scene in Hillsborough is any indication, she can take solace in knowing she is very much a trendsetter.

This year, there were four female wrestlers at Cedar Ridge. Freshmen Sun Tha (106 pounds), Raelyn Broucksou (113), and Emma Watkins (Kady’s sister at 126 pounds) all joined Watkins in the state women’s championships.

Plus, the middle school scene at Stanback Middle School has active female wrestlers who helped the Bulldogs to a 2nd place finish in the Orange Person Athletic Conference this year.

Tha pinned Desta Daniels of Jacksonville in the opening round of the 106B pound division. Laila Sa of Hoke County pinned Tha in 41 seconds. Sophia Forquer of Corinth Holders eliminated Tha in the consolation round.

Broucksou lost her opening match, but rebounded to pin Eastern Alamance’s Alaina Kunder in 4:20 of the 113B pound division. Broucksou defeated Hertiage’s Bryanna Luihn 4-0 to reach the consolation semis, but was pinned by Jacksonville’s Teah Chunn, who wound up finishing third.

Emma Watkins, a freshman, won three matches in the consolation round. After dropping her opening bout to Marissa Connelly of West Henderson, Watkins pinned Northern Nash’s Elizabeth Daniels in 1:52. She pinned Alliana Garcia of Albermarle in 2:54. Watkins pinned Dekira Baker of Fairmont in just 14 seconds. Lillian Sealey of High Point Central pinned Watkins in the consolation semifinals.